A cardboard pill box torn open by the side of the road. Not just opened from one of the ends. Ripped. As though hurriedly. I was walking fast. Past the name that caught my eye. I stopped. Reversed. Yes, literally. I retraced my steps … backwards. Curiosity mixed with disbelief. I had to make sure my aging eyes weren’t tricking me.
I stopped again. Leaned in. I felt my eyes squinting; my head tilting to make sure I wasn’t missing or adding any letters to make it less offensive.
UNWANTED the untorn part of the box proclaimed.
Unwanted what? It wasn’t clear. Until the small print came into focus. I can’t help but wonder sometimes if I really do need those reading glasses.
Emergency contraception pill. Was it discarded here in person I wondered … or dumped as part of a bigger load of refuse as is the case all over India. Sad but true.
Was it rape, I wondered. Or drunken lovers acting in passion. A broken condom perhaps?
I walked on. Plagued. Unwanted playing over in my head. Knowing I was one of those conceptions that should have been snuffed out. 
A gender emergency.
Had she known, I too would have been left roadside … a ripped allopathic remedy for my unwanted c*nt.
Shrinking to fit. Pulling away. Not being too big, too loud, too bright, too magical. Never saying how I felt or asking for what I wanted.
Unwanted, I learned to turn that against myself. Until I didn’t.
Triggers are important activators— like a burner that gets unwittingly turned up … until BOOM! … something has to give … and then settle. And then the slow burn of realisation takes over and everything makes sense again.